


holding my breath (the last one i've got left)

by cowboykillers



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 14:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11602152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboykillers/pseuds/cowboykillers
Summary: Post ST:B. Bones finds out that Jim was thinking about leaving the Enterprise behind, and he doesn't take it very well at all.





	holding my breath (the last one i've got left)

**Author's Note:**

> My main beef with ST:B was not that Jim and Spock hadn't told one another of their plans to leave the Enterprise, but that Jim hadn't mentioned it to Bones. 
> 
> I feel like Bones would be pretty upset, too, if he ever found out.

The one good thing that could be said about that mess with Edison and the Franklin was that, for once, Leonard wasn't trapped somewhere in space he didn't want to be. Well, not at the end of it, anyway -- he'd been plenty trapped and plenty unhappy about it at the time, down on the surface of that planet trying desperately to convince himself and a dying Spock that the rest of their crew wasn't space dust or worse -- but Yorktown wasn't bad. It wasn't bad at all, in fact, and he hadn't been surprised at all to find that he could get used to living and serving on a starbase. When he'd first made his harebrained decision to fuck off and join Starfleet to escape his problems, he'd honestly thought that was where he'd end up, and if not for Jim Kirk, he's sure he would have.  
  
It would've been nice, too. He's already learned three times as much as he expected to from just _talking_ to the doctors and nurses stationed at Yorktown, and that didn't even begin to scratch the surface of the hands-on education he'd gotten from picking up a rotation at one of Yorktown's big, beautiful hospitals. A lot of the crew had elected to go back to Earth while their new ship was constructed, but some of them had stuck around for a lot of different reasons. Jim hadn't gone anywhere, of course; you couldn't pry that man from his baby with the jaws of life, even if it was being built from the ground up again. Same for Scotty, and Sulu's family was already on base, so he hung around until it was time to catch their ride back and went with them. It's been months, and they've had a skeleton crew for  most of it, but people are beginning to filter back in as the new Enterprise creeps closer and closer toward being spaceworthy.  
  
It says something about Leonard that he's actually a little excited to get back out there. The prospect of being in space itself, hell no, but being back on the Enterprise, going through the motions of a routine that's become his new comfort zone, seeing the people day in and day out who have become his family -- he's missed that. As exciting and stimulating as his time on Yorktown has been, he's ready to get home, and he almost can't believe the Enterprise has become that. Sure, he's got plenty of contacts that he'll be comming in his downtime (if he ever gets any) once they go back out, but as nice as this has been, he's ready to get moving again.  
  
He blames Jim for that.  
  
Part of his restlessness, he knows, stems from the fact that Jocelyn and Joanna had already come and gone on a visit. The hardest part of choosing to go back out with the Enterprise is knowing that it cuts into time he could have with Joanna; the unpredictability of his schedule, at times, makes it difficult to coordinate visits, but the longer the distance between his and Joss' divorce stretches behind them, the more willing she is to meet him halfway. Maybe distance really did make the heart grow fonder -- or maybe it was the age-old _time heals all wounds and wounds all heels_ , or hell, maybe they've both just grown enough to let it happen. He'll take whatever he can get, and knowing that he won't be getting another sight of Jo outside of a vid screen until the next time her mama can arrange some leave and he's at another starbase has taken a bit of the shine off Yorktown.  
  
God, Jo'd loved it on base, though. It awes him and terrifies him to see how bright her eyes get when she talks about Starfleet and Jocelyn tells him that she's got her heart set on getting into the bowels of a starship. He doesn't know if it had been a disastrous mistake or the best thing he could ever do as a father to introduce her to Scotty, but seeing the way she'd lit up when he'd taken her around the Enterprise's engine room had worth it. She's got a few years yet to change her mind, but more and more, it's starting to look like she won't.  
  
_She wants to be just like you,_ Jocelyn had said, and his heart had turned over in his chest and cracked wide open. _Out there in the stars, saving the whole universe. She's got this idea that they'll let her on the same ship as you if she's in a different department. Can't tell her otherwise, and she gets that from you, you know._  
  
Remembering the words even weeks later makes him smile, both from the sheer joy of knowing he hasn't fucked up his relationship with his little girl enough to make hate him and because Joss had seemed almost happy to share it with him. He'd never have believed it when he'd been half-drunk in a bathroom stall in Riverside, Iowa, but things really had turned out for the better.  
  
A question pulls him out of his thoughts, asked in the faintly whirring tones he's come to realize are amusement from the man beside him, and Leonard has to ask, "Sorry, what was that?"  
  
"I said, it is too bad that you are commissioned to the Enterprise still. We had almost hoped you would stay with Captain Kirk." Leonard's brow furrows in faint confusion, and the man beside him waves one of his many hands, the others still intent on sorting the supplies that he and Leonard have been working on for the past hour. "Well, when you visit, we will have to make due."  
  
Kilin's English is very good for the most part, but there are still a few things that get lost between them from time to time, so he doesn't think much of it as he says, "Unfortunately, I'd follow that crazy bastard anywhere. It's been nice working with you, though. If anything could tempt me to ditch that bucket of bolts, it'd be the teaching hospital down in sector four."  
  
Kilin inclines his head, agreeing, "Captain Kirk would have made a fine Vice Admiral. Perhaps one day."  
  
"Vice Admiral?" Leonard's eyebrow hikes, but he's amused more than alarmed when he says, "Maybe one day, but Jim's pretty well married to the Enterprise. I'm not surprised they'd want him to settle down, though. Hell, there was a time I would've practically begged him to shave off a couple years out here if I didn't know even the thought of it'd make him so sad he'd add one on."  
  
Leonard pops the last hypo in its case and brushes his hands together, glancing over to see Kilin watching him curiously. "That's a wrap, and speaking of Jim, I'm meeting him for lunch." With a friendly pat on the approximation of Kilin's shoulder, Leonard adds, "See you in a few."  
  
The idea of Jim giving up his Captaincy, his ship, his crew -- the life he's built for himself -- for a seat in the Admiralty on a starbase is funny enough to have him chuckling as he pulls out his comm and taps out a message.  
  
_10 minutes, don't be late. I'm hungry as hell._  
  
His comm chirps a few moments later, Jim's bratty _Last one there picks up the tab._ enough to shift his smile to a good-natured scowl as he punches his destination into one of those damnable little transporters and blips off to another part of the station.

 

***

  
  
They're halfway through lunch when it comes up, a throwaway comment as Leonard's telling Jim about his day, but the way Jim stiffens for half a second before he relaxes into a laugh is enough to catch Leonard's attention. There are a lot of things Leonard McCoy is at the end of the day, and most of them aren't exactly flattering when they're laid out side-by-side, but one thing that he's always prided himself on is being able to read body language. (That pride had taken a sore hit toward the end of his marriage, but then, he'd learned his lesson about taking things for granted with the people he cared about. If anything, his colossal failure there had made him hyper-aware when it came to every other relationship in his life, something that Jim has pointed out to him on more than one occasion when he gets a little bit crazy with an idea.  
  
_You're chewing on something, spit it out._  
  
_Jesus, Bones, you're the one chewing on something. Like a dog with a bone - hah!_  
  
_Damn it, Jim --_  
  
_It's fine. I swear._  
  
So, yeah, he notices things.)  
  
Jim's good, though, and if Leonard had blinked he would've missed it, but the point is, he didn't blink. And that makes him curious, curious enough to lean over and snag a piece of Jim's lunch with his chopsticks and aim it at his best friend. "Can't imagine where he got that idea. Can you picture yourself sitting pretty in an armchair while Spock jets off across space in your best girl?"  
  
Jim's smile is sincere right up until it hits his cheekbones, and Leonard narrows his eyes as he says, "You know I can't."  
  
There's something -- a little off, Leonard decides. He pops his food into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, and presses, "You'd have to put in for something like that, wouldn't you? I assume even the great and glorious Jim Kirk wouldn't get promoted to the Admiralty without some form of due process, even if you've saved the galaxy three times over by now."  
  
Jim shifts, gaze dropping to his plate, and the first thread of alarm twists up in Leonard's belly. "Trust me, Bones, I'm not going to be a Vice Admiral anytime soon. Hey, are you going to finish that?"  
  
Leonard smacks Jim's chopsticks away with his own, a heavy frown on his face. "But you were thinking about it, weren't you? You applied. You must've."  
  
Their gazes catch, and Leonard's never once looked into Jim's eyes and seen the calculation of a lie in the making there before, not aimed at him. It makes him sit back abruptly, palm flat over his chopsticks on the table. "You did."  
  
"Bones," Jim starts, leaning forward slightly, his smile as easy as his tone. "It was something I was thinking about, but you know it's not for me. No way. Hell, the Enterprise is almost ready, and I can't wait to be back out there."  
  
Jim wants him to let it go, and Leonard knows that he ought to just drop it. After all, it's like Jim says: he can't wait to get back out there. He obviously turned it down, even though he was the one to put in for the posting in the first place, and that ought to be enough. The problem is, Leonard's never been good at letting things go. He knows this about himself, damn it, and knows that half the fights he and Jocelyn had started because he'd sunk his teeth in and wouldn't stop shaking until she bit back, but there are things worth fighting about, he thinks.  
  
When you stop fighting about the things that matter, you've given up. Doesn't matter if it's just slamming the door instead of talking to your wife, or laughing over the idea that your best friend almost let you fuck off into your greatest fear without him without so much as a moment's notice -- if you don't act like it matters, it doesn't matter.  
  
This fucking _matters_.  
  
Though apparently, only to him.  
  
"Bones?" He drags his gaze back up to Jim's, and the cautious concern there is a lit match on the gas leak of his temper.  
  
"You weren't going to say a damn thing to me," he accuses, keeping his voice low only in deference to the other people in the restaurant who are enjoying their meals, blissfully unaware that Leonard McCoy's world is coming apart around him for the second time in his life. "You were going to just -- what, Jim? Were you going to send me a goddamn letter? _Sorry Bones, have fun in space without me!_ I can't believe --"  
  
"Whoa." Jim raises his hands, the gesture so reminiscent of a man trying to calm a spooked horse that it makes Leonard's nostrils flare instinctively. "Whoa, no, it's not like that at all. I would've told you if I decided to take it. Jesus, Bones, of course I would have. But I decided not to, so I didn't think--"  
  
"You didn't think," and he has to bite off the last word to keep it from being a shout. He pushes back, disgusted, and a few eyes are drawn to him because of the scrape of his chair across the floor. His lunch, half-eaten, makes him sick to look at. "What I don't know won't hurt me, right? I expected this from Spock, but even he told me he wanted out, and of all the people in the world I'd have thought would show our friendship a little common decency, it sure as hell wasn't _Spock_."  
  
"Spock?" Jim has risen, too, his napkin falling from his lap and fluttering to the floor. "What -- what about Spock? Bones, I'm sorry. I didn't think it would be a big deal. I didn't want to get you worked up over nothing."  
  
The words hit much harder than he's sure Jim means them to; they're aimed true and steady, cracking three ribs on the left side and going straight for his heart.  
  
"Right," he says distantly, stabbing a finger at their table. Nonsensically, all he can think of to say is, "You're getting lunch." before he spins and power-walks to the door, cotton in his ears.  
  
He's halfway down the block when Jim catches him above the elbow and spins him around, and Leonard barely manages to resist leaning into the momentum and clocking him upside the head with a well-deserved fist. "Jim, you need to let me walk away right now."  
  
"No way," Jim says, though he lets Leonard shrug his hand off his arm. "You're angry. I deserve that. But let me explain, please."  
  
"Oh, now you want to talk." The bitterness in his voice surprises them both, but once he's started Leonard can't stop, eyes hot and sharp on Jim's face. "Well, that's tough shit, because I don't feel like talking. Leave me alone, Jim."  
  
To Leonard's surprise, Jim does, and the guilt he feels at the flash of hurt on Jim's face only serves to piss him off even more.

 

***

  
  
He takes the afternoon to cool off a little, which is both a balm and a burn, because once he's worked through the first throes of his temper, all he's left with is hurt. Once upon a time, Leonard had been a man who could bury that under more anger; he'd gotten very good at lying to himself and taking the easy way out, and being angry was always easier than being devastated. Logically -- and for God's sake, he can hear Spock saying _logically, Leonard..._ and it makes him want to laugh and throw something at the same time -- he knows that he's blowing this out of proportion. Jim's his best friend, but they're not fucking married, for God's sake. There's no reason Jim should tell him what his plans are, and he's not obligated to ask Leonard's permission before he goes and makes a change to his life. It's just that -- Leonard would have.  
  
Leonard would have talked to him. If things were getting so bad that he thought he couldn't go back out in the black again, not even with Jim as his anchor to sanity in the chaos of all his worst fears realized, he would have gone to Jim and they'd have eventually talked it out while they passed a bottle between them. Knowing Jim, he would have worked things so that Leonard somehow found himself able to bear the idea of carrying along just like he always had, and he would've made Leonard think it was his idea. Because they were friends, and the only thing Leonard can think of that's worse than going out into uncharted space and facing all that terror head-on is the idea of Jim doing it without him watching his back.  
  
That's what it comes down to. Leonard's feelings are hurt because his best friend doesn't need him as much as he thought he did. God, he disgusts himself.  
  
It's that disgust that drives him to message Jim, short and sweet: _Ready when you are._ and he sits back, dragging a hand over his face, resigned to feeling further like a fool.  
  
Because he knows what it comes down to. It's not just that his best friend would be fine without him, that he doesn't need him.  
  
It's that Leonard needs Jim, in far more ways than he's been willing to admit to even himself, and he's always hated being confronted with the true depths of his own damn idiocy.  
  
He's not surprised when Jim shows up only minutes later, expression pinched and his eyes too serious and too blue as they flick over Leonard's face and only get more somber at what they find. They stand in the doorway a moment, awkward, before Leonard gestures behind him. "Come on in. I'd rather not make an ass of myself in public again, if it's all the same to you."  
  
Jim steps through, his hand skimming over Leonard's elbow and squeezing, as the door whispers shut behind him. "Bones, I'm really sorry. You're right: I should have told you. I just convinced myself that it'd do more harm than good, but that was... hell, it was selfish."  
  
"You don't have to do this," Leonard says wearily, reaching up to rub his forehead. The fight's drained out of him faster than he used to be able to drain a bottle of whiskey. "I overreacted. You're right, it's not a big deal, so let's just drop it."  
  
"I need you to understand," Jim says, quietly, and his hand comes up to Leonard's elbow again. "Please just hear me out."  
  
"Fine." It's more an exhalation than a response, but Leonard just wants to put this behind him. He feels tired, like he's aged a century in the space of one afternoon.  
  
"The thing is." Jim draws his hands back, crossing his arms over his chest, and begins to pace. "I couldn't tell you. Not when I first started thinking about it, and not when I applied, because... Bones, I couldn't do this without you."  
  
Leonard laughs before he can stop himself, harsh and short. Jim's head whips around, and he insists, "Bones, I couldn't. I didn't know if Starfleet would want me for Vice Admiral, but I knew that if you even so much as hinted you wanted to transfer to a spacedock, I'd be finding out about your transfer after the shuttle already left."  
  
"Don't be ridiculous," Leonard snaps, but Jim keeps talking right over him, crowding into his space to be heard.  
  
"I'm not. You have no idea the tug-of-war I've had over keeping you as my CMO, do you? Everybody wants you, Bones. You're brilliant, you're a goddamn genius in your field, and you're the bravest person I've ever -- If the brass knew you wanted off the Enterprise, even theoretically, you'd have a buffet table laid out with your options. And it's selfish, but I knew that if I was already having a hard time going back out there with you, if I tried to do it without you, I..."  
  
"Right." He'd thought that his anger was gone, but seeing the backflips Jim is doing to try to put a positive spin on a shitty situation is stoking the fire.  
  
His flat tone makes Jim's eyes flash, and he drops his arms, voice pitching lower. "Yeah, I am right. Because you're massively talented, Bones, but you're wasted on the Enterprise. If they could, Starfleet would chain you to HQ and have you teaching, spitting out ten, twenty, a hundred doctors just like you. Because as amazing as you are," now he raises his voice, reaching out to grip Leonard's shoulder and give it a brief shake, "you're only one man. If there was even half a chance that they could convince you to stay planetside, or even on base somewhere, they'd leap on it. So yeah, that's why I didn't say anything. You can be pissed at me now, because at least you know why."  
  
It almost makes sense. That, Leonard thinks, is the worst part. Jim Kirk could convince a man that he didn't know his own mother if he set his mind to it, and Leonard's watched it happen time and time again to other people. He'd never expected it to hurt quite this much when it happened to him, but then, he never does see this kind of thing coming.  
  
More fool him.  
  
"So, it's fine for you to leave without so much as a _so long, Bones_ ," he begins wearily, and Jim shakes him again, short and sharp.  
  
"You're not _listening_ to me, Bones. If I got this posting, you'd be guaranteed one in a heartbeat." There's a strange note in Jim's voice, something that sounds almost like pleading, but he's never heard Jim Kirk beg for a single thing in his life. "I was never going to go anywhere without you."  
  
Before he realizes what he's about to say, Leonard demands, "What if I didn't want to _go_?"  
  
It's the last thing either of them expected, and Jim's hand slips from his shoulder, his jaw just slightly slack from surprise. Under any other circumstances, it would have been hilarious to see Jim rendered speechless, but he's still feeling whiplash from what he just realized: if Jim had stayed, Leonard doesn't know if he would have made the choice to do the same. Doesn't know if he could, even weighing the idea of sticking by Jim's side, in a manner of speaking, of being a little more stationary so that he could spend more time time with Jo. He thinks he would, but now he has an entire crew full of people he feels personally responsible for, people he cares about, and he also has a teenage daughter who looks up to him for who he's chosen to be.  
  
Who wants to grow up and serve on a starship alongside him, and he's spent so many years terrified that Joanna would grow up not wanting anything to do with the man he's become that he's just not sure he could be someone else anymore.  
  
In the silence, he speaks quietly. "They're my family, Jim, and you made damn sure of that. You can't just expect to snap your fingers and have me trot after you like the faithful family dog. I know I've done it before but, damn it, I have a place here." Jim flinches despite how even his tone is, and Leonard raises a hand, rubbing at the back of his neck. "And it's a place I bitch about being, but it's one I've made my own and I care about these people. I care about _you_ , enough that I'd sure as shit have told you the moment I started thinking about taking another post, but I... I don't know, Jim. Guess it's a good thing we won't have to find out yet."  
  
After a few moments, Jim sighs softly, his shoulders dropping with it. "Bones, you're right, and I'm so sorry. I don't think you'd just - shit, fuck, it's just - I wasn't thinking clearly." He drags a hand over his face, his palm muffling the next words, though Leonard hears them perfectly clearly. "I can't do this without you, but that's not an excuse."  
  
"So you've said." He brushes past Jim, trying to swallow down the bitterness that's coating the inside of his mouth, flavoring every word he speaks.  
  
"No, I couldn't do either. I couldn't go back out without you, but I couldn't stay here without you, either, knowing you're out there - even with Spock, though apparently _not_ with Spock - Jesus. I don't know when I became so selfish."  
  
The hard twist to Jim's words soothes a little bit of his wounded pride, and Leonard glances over to sees Jim looking more lost and tired and unsure that he's ever seen him. Quietly, he says, "Hell, Jim. Why do you think I'm so upset, even though nothing's changing at all?"  
  
Jim purses his lips, but says nothing, leaving Leonard to grasp ineffectively for the right words.  
  
"I can't do this without you either, kid. I joined Starfleet in desperation, but you grounded me here. I learned to fly a shuttle, to breathe with space pressing down all around me for five fucking years, found the end of my rope and reached beyond it time and time again because I knew you'd be there."  
  
He shrugs, feeling restless and wrung-out all at once. "Doesn't matter. Nothing's changed, so we're fine, Jim."  
  
"No, we're not."  
  
The heat in his voice sparks an answering shortness in Leonard's. "I said we're fine. Let's just drop it."  
  
Jim takes him by the shoulders again, but this time, he grips hard. "We're not," and his voice cracks a little on the last. "Bones, I was so terrified at the idea of losing you that I almost kicked you out the door myself. That's not fine."  
  
"Jim, seriously, drop it," he'd like to demand, but his voice comes out just a little too small.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jim repeats, drawing Leonard in, stiff-shouldered and resisting. His arms band tight around him, breath warm on his cheek as he presses his mouth to skin and promises, "I won't do it again. I can't lose you because I'm an ass. You mean too damn much to me."  
  
"Shit," Leonard breathes, returning the embrace with trembling hands to match his quaking heart. "Don't get caught up in the moment and start writing checks your body can't cash."  
  
Jim's hands slide down Leonard's back, breath warm against his ear, and he's not forcing him to stay but damned if Leonard can move. All he says is, " _Jim_ ," a little warningly, and Jim's hands finally settle on Leonard's hips, grip light.  
  
"Bones." His eyes drop to Leonard's mouth, and he says quietly, "I'm not caught up in the moment. I'm just finally seizing it."  
  
It's barely a kiss, little more than the press of one pair of chapped lips to another at first. Jim doesn't push for anything more than that, and Leonard can barely breathe around the way his heart has swelled up into his throat, has gone deaf to anything but the sinister little voice in the back of his mind that's repeating over and over again what a bad idea this is. He digs his fingers into Jim's back, unsure if he wants to pull him closer or slide his hands around his ribcage and shove him away.  
  
Because this is it. If he fucks this up, there won't be any going back for him; he knows Jim would be able to take it in stride, but Leonard -- couldn't.

He loves Jim too damn much, and the whole damn universe won't be big enough to get away from his own broken heart if he ruins what they have by gambling on something more and losing.  
  
He slides one hand around to Jim's front, trading breaths between the fraction of space between their mouths, and pretends he can feel Jim's heart galloping the way his own is knocking against his ribs. "Don't do that to me again."  
  
"Never," Jim agrees, and Leonard brings his other hand up to twist in Jim's hair, still hesitating.

He closes his eyes, nose bumping against Jim's, and says roughly, "I'm gonna kick your fucking ass if you try it."

Jim's laugh is swallowed by another kiss, and that voice is still echoing in the back of his head, still whispering its poison to him, but he drowns it out with the sound of their breath every time they break for air, with the thump of Jim's shoulders hitting the wall, with the pound of his own heartbeat in his ears.

Maybe he'll fuck it up. Maybe they both will, because God knows neither of them has a good track record with this kind of thing, but --

 _Maybe we won't_.

He kisses Jim over and over again, a man dying of thirst and drowning at the same time, and he thinks again, _maybe we won't_.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at doctorplum!


End file.
